Should I get a new hard drive and start over

[TurboTimAust]

OK- I have Ultimate 64bit, a 250g drive that was partitioned to 3 drives, 5
user logins, 1 admin which I have since changed to 2 admins. C drive was only
25 gig so after a couple of program installs it ran out of room quick. In
noobish fashion I tried to install windows again to the D drive so that it
would become my C drive- I know now how stupid this was, seemed clever at the
time...

SO, I was going to get a new 500G internal hard drive and install windows
all over, once done connect my old drive to recover all current stuff I need
hoping it would see it as c,d,e and f drives. Either that or get an external
hard drive and try to save individually everything I need and re format the
current drive, which I can't do now because the C drive is already full...I
read to unpartition I'd lose everything on drives D and E, plus with the
vista on D I don't want that part saved anyway...man I'm confused

If I go option 1 will the previous installs of vista cause the chaos they do
now if I reconnect the old drive to be D,E,F?

PLEASE SOMEONE, does any of this make sense? Are either ok to do, if so
which would be preferable. Thanks for any help.

 

[TurboTimAust]

Thanks for that, its good to know reconnecting original drive won't cause any
problems. Should I just leave the current windows OS installs alone in the
original drive and treat it as a 3 drive storage space?

 

[dennis@home]

Thanks for that, its good to know reconnecting original drive won't cause
any
problems. Should I just leave the current windows OS installs alone in the
original drive and treat it as a 3 drive storage space?

Why don't you convert it to a USB external drive by buying a box?
Then you can use it as a backup device.

 

[TurboTimAust]

Thanks Dennis- excuse my ignorance though, is a "box" the external hard
drive? I f so is it possible to transfer everything on my existing 3 drives
except say the OS's and then recover the 3 partitions to a single
re-formatted C hard drive? Because the C drive is too small programs were
installed to the 2nd partition D because it had room.
I get confused with programs stored to D drives but operating from the C
drives...it may as well all be in Japanese sometimes.

 

[Paul Knudsen]

Why don't you convert it to a USB external drive by buying a box?
Then you can use it as a backup device.

The cages suck. The drive spins constantly, unless you remember to
shut it off. One (a "Glory") quit working altogether.

 

[dennis@home]

Thanks Dennis- excuse my ignorance though, is a "box" the external hard
drive?

Something like http://www.ebuyer.com/product/74821.

Make sure you buy either a SATA or an IDE one depending on which type of
disk you wish to fit.
They have a USB2 interface and plug in after you have installed windows.
You can then read and write anything on the disk to get files back or backup
new ones.
You can buy them at local computer shops.

I f so is it possible to transfer everything on my existing 3 drives
except say the OS's and then recover the 3 partitions to a single
re-formatted C hard drive? Because the C drive is too small programs were
installed to the 2nd partition D because it had room.
I get confused with programs stored to D drives but operating from the C
drives...it may as well all be in Japanese sometimes.

As you appear confused I would recommend buying a big drive, remove the
existing drives, install windows on the big drive and then add the old
drives back one by one either internally if you have the slots or in
external boxes like above and then moving your data, etc. Once your data is
safe you can do other things with the drives.
You could try the Easy transfer wizard to move all your stuff but I
personally would reinstall it to a known clean state.

Before you proceed do you have recovery disks or windows media or is it a
partition on the machine?
You need to check the manuals as to how you do a system recovery to be sure
and make sure you have whatever is needed.
If you don't have either you will need to use disk imaging with acronis
trueimage or similar as mentioned by others..

 

[dennis@home]

The cages suck. The drive spins constantly, unless you remember to
shut it off. One (a "Glory") quit working altogether.

That must be a feature of the case as mine appear to spin down.